Water being a State subject, steps for augmentation, conservation and efficient management of water resources are primarily undertaken by the respective State Governments. In order to supplement the efforts of the State Governments, Central Government provides technical and financial assistance to them through various schemes and programmes. Central Government has taken various steps for rainwater harvesting in the country. Ministry of Jal Shakti, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Ministry of Housing Affairs etc. core Central Ministries along with State Governments/ UTs are concerned with rainwater harvesting. Steps taken by Central Government to control water depletion and promote rain water harvesting/conservation are available at.

http://jalshakti-dowr.gov.in/sites/default/files/Steps_to_control_water_depletion_Feb2021.pdf

The Jal Shakti Abhiyan (JSA) was launched in the year 2019 in 1592 blocks out of 2836 blocks in 256 water stressed districts of the country and was expanded as “Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain” (JSA:CTR) in 2021 with the theme “Catch the Rain – Where it Falls When it Falls” to cover all the blocks of all districts (rural as well as urban areas) across the country. “Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain” (JSA:CTR) -2022 campaign, the third in the series of JSAs, was launched by Hon’ble President on 29.03.2022 in all districts (rural as well as urban areas) of the country for implementation from 29 March, 2022 to 30 November, 2022 - the pre-monsoon and monsoon period. The focused interventions of the campaign include (1) water conservation and rainwater harvesting; (2) enumerating, geo-tagging & making inventory of all water bodies; preparation of scientific plans for water conservation based on it (3) Setting up of Jal Shakti Kendras in all districts (4) intensive afforestation and (5) awareness generation. Since the launch on 29^th March 2022 till date, both urban and rural areas put together, a total of 39,46,241 water related works, including rainwater harvesting structures, are completed/on-going, in addition to 78,38,14,609 afforestation activities carried out under the campaign. The expenditure under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) alone is Rs 23,376 crore. 55,271 Training Programmes/ Kisan Melas are also held.

Model Building Bye Laws (MBBL), 2016 circulated to all States/UTs by Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs include provisions for Rainwater Harvesting and barring a few, all the States/UTs have adopted the provisions of rainwater harvesting of MBBL-2016. The MBBL, 2016 contains provisions empowering the local authority to formulate practice of incentives and penalties to promote rainwater harvesting based on best practices.

Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) has advised States/UTs to take measures to promote/adopt artificial recharge to ground water/ rain water harvesting. CGWA also issues notifications and directions to State Governments and the Administrators of the UTs to adopt Roof Top Rain Water Harvesting (RTRWH) in all the ‘Critical’ and ‘Over-exploited’ assessment units (Blocks/Taluks/Firkas/Districts/Valley/Islands/Region/Tehsil, etc. in the country and in all the Government buildings under their jurisdiction.

Master Plan for Artificial Recharge to Groundwater- 2020 has been prepared by Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) in consultation with States/UTs which is a macro level plan indicating various structures for the different terrain conditions of the country including estimated cost. The Master Plan contains provisions for construction of about 1.42 crore rain water harvesting and artificial recharge structures in the country to harness 185 Billion Cubic Metre (BCM) of monsoon rainfall.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Jal Shakti, Shri Bishweswar Tudu in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

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AS

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